Wednesday, September 9

Mama Vee wrote about her accident, commenting about "Land Rover Rules," in part, "...someone waved a car through traffic and they hit me. I was in a car too."

I'd written about NEVER going just because some well-meaning soul waves you that it's OK. Well, I'm a hypocrite. I've lost count of all the times in the last few weeks that I've done a little "Keri wave" to encourage motorists to illegally pass me on two-lane roads with double yellow lines. Mostly they obey, not considering how they'd explain it if I misjudged and they hit something (almost certainly NOT me). I never do it unless I can see that it really IS safe for them to pass, but the Land Rover Rule would NEVER allow ME to take advantage of some idiot, er, authoritative cyclist waving that it was OK to pass illegally.

Thank you very much, but if I'm going to illegally pass a cyclist (or anybody else), I'll pick my own time and place and do it when I can see for myself that I can do it safely.

5 comments:

Rantwick, before you ask, last time I got hit in a Jaguar, it was by a Canadian.

I got a little taste of government insurance dealing with ICBC. BTW, ICBC is pronounced "Icky Bicky." They were pretty darn high handed until I reiterated that their client illegally turned into ME and they did not have the full coercive power of the State when their client was crashing into people in a foreign country. After that, they got more reasonable.

If I'm out on a rural road that is twisty and hilly, and it's too narrow to share the lane (always the case), traffic can start to back up behind me. They get antsy and want to pass, but I am sitting up high and 20 feet ahead of them, so I can see that there is someone in the oncoming lane, or someone pulling out of a driveway, or another blind curve just ahead. So I give the driver behind me the "slow down" hand signal. While they're trying to decide what to do with that information, the oncoming traffic whooshes by, and they think "wow, that hand signal just prevented an ugly moment." I might have to keep giving the same hand signal for three minutes, which seems like an eternity. Eventually, I see that the way is clear, but these roads have such limited visibility that by the time the motorist behind me has the ability to make that judgement on his own, he's going to have almost no room at all to complete that pass. Maybe we're approaching the top of a hill, which means that when I start down the other side, I'll be picking up speed, making the pass more difficult. So I give a big, open, sweeping, "come on by" signal, and you know what? They never, never buzz me as they pass.

This is the same as your scenario in that I'm asking the other road users to trust me and put themselves at risk.

It is different in that I'm not trying to subvert the right-of-way rules when I do this. I'm preserving them, just communicating.

And, of course, it's not going to make any difference to me if they ignore my "go" signal, they just get delayed.

I've practiced Lyle's scenario/actions many times. There are times when it is appropriate to help a motorist out with communication. Just like there are times when it's appropriate to permit a motorist to squeeze past (slowly) in a 12ft lane. A mindful cyclist knows what circumstances are safe and where there might be hidden dangers to doing this. I know some people who are really rigid about this, but it's not an all-or-nothing issue. We start with a default set of guidelines/principles and practice situational awareness and adaptation.

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Subject MatterMostly it's about local transportation cycling, as it exists in the here and now. It's got a smattering of other gratuitous toy recreation thrown in to keep y'all a little off balance. For those that don't know me, toy recreation means English & Italian cars, aircraft - and downhill skiing.